Double Negatives Make a Positive

[T.J]

Double negative resolving to a positive

Litotes
Example: "There isn't a day when I don't think about her." -- Prince William, speaking of his mother.

A Litote is a rhetorical device which uses double negation to emphasise a statement. By denying its opposite, the double negation cancels itself out and resolves to a positive. The effect of this can differ depending on con****************.
For instance, "I don't disagree" could be said to mean "I certainly agree" if stated in an affirmative manner. However, if stated in a cautious manner, "I don't disagree" can also be used to mean "you may be right, although I am not sure" or "there is no mistake in what you say, but there is more to it than that."

Similarly, the phrase "Mr. Jones was not incompetent" may be used to mean either "Mr. Jones was very competent" or "Mr. Jones was competent, but not brilliantly so."

This device can also be used to humorous effect; for example, in the TV show The Simpsons, Homer Simpson says in one episode ("Missionary: Impossible"), "I'm not not licking toads", humorously conveying to the audience that he had indeed been licking toads.

In today's standard English, double negatives are not used; for example the standard English ********************alent of "I don't want nothing!" is "I don't want anything". It should, however, be noted that in standard English one cannot say "I don't want nothing!" to express the meaning "I want something!" unless there is very heavy stress on the "don't" or a specific plaintive stress on the "nothing". (In one of these cases, it would be a grammatically correct way of emphasizing that the speaker would rather have something than nothing at all.)

Although they are not used in standard English, double negatives are used in various American English dialects, including African American Vernacular English, and the East London Cockney and East Anglian dialects and less frequently, but still commonly, in colloquial English.


The double-negatives-make-a-positive rule was first introduced in English when Bishop Robert Lowth wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes

[*"الحالمة"*]

I hardly read it!
thx T.J

*"with my lo0ove"*

[كاتم العبرات]

Thanks T.J for your topic